Amazon, MS, and Yahoo Against Google's Library 144
anonymousNR writes "From the BBC, 'Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library. Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo will sign up to the Open Book Alliance being spearheaded by the Internet Archive. They oppose a legal settlement that could make Google the main source for many online works. "Google is trying to monopolise the library system," the Internet Archive's founder Brewster Kahle said.'"
This is not about competing to provide books (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:5, Insightful)
This. If Amazon had any intention of selling these books, they'd be selling these books! They just don't like that Google is getting a slice of their market.
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:2, Insightful)
If Amazon had any intention of selling these books, they'd be selling these books!
I thought that was the point of that Kindle thingy. However, I could be wrong; I'm not very familiar with the device
No, wait, I see where I'm going wrong. For all that DRM, Amazon is selling licenses to view the texts, rather than selling the books themselves. Never mind.
Re:Open X Alliance (Score:1, Insightful)
They coincide when you're not the one with all the control.
Re:Open X Alliance (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure that the Internet Archive is a nonprofit.
Yep. Ironically Kahle started it the same year Larry Page started the research project which became google.
But, even if it is a non-profit that doesn't mean MS/Yahoo/Amazon aren't supporting it for their own reasons. I just hope Kahle is shrewed enough to milk as much support out of these new-found 'friends' as he can without giving away the cow.
Google's initiative is remarkably one-sided. But a lot of the opposition seems to be from 'old-media' types who want to keep things locked up in dead trees and paywalls rather than a solution that opens up as much information to as many people as possible. Kahle's got the opportunity to do not just the right thing, but the best thing, I hope he can get away with it.
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:4, Insightful)
We have no access to out of print books. That's kinda the point.
Re:Some has to do it (Score:3, Insightful)
If these companies are the only ones with the ability to serve most of the world catalog of books, then we will all be the poorer for it.
Freedom requires that out of copyright books and older books whose legal status is unclear (which is what we're talking about) be scannable/distributable by everyone, or else by no-one.
Not sure that I would call them tech giants (Score:1, Insightful)
Yahoo has NEVER had any real decent tech that it developed. For example, yahoo made heavy use of Perl and BSD.
Same for Amazon.
All have ridden on the coattails of real giants.
Mod away your fan bois.
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:3, Insightful)
Right thing for the wrong reasons, in many ways.
They're doing it so Google doesn't monopolize the 'market' for these books - but I imagine any one of them would do the same thing in a heartbeat if they could. The only saving grace here is having all of them together means they're unlikely to ever get that chance - and having the Internet Archive involved will hopefully keep some sane control over what does happen in the end.
I'm all for it. (Score:2, Insightful)
University all access passes for their libraries and students.
Access to orphan books.
Easy for authors to claim rights and be compensated.
Easy reading on computers, mobile devices, and e-readers.
If you guys can accomplish all this as quickly and completely as Google will, I'll support you.
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not the exclusive right to make out of print books that is a problem, you can't claim ownership of publishing writes unless you created the content or those rights were assigned by the person who created that content.
The privacy is the big problem. Should a person not have the same right to privacy, when they access a digital library as has been accepted through out the democratic world when they access a hard copy public library.
Google is really going to shoot itself in the foot and then stick the bloody stump in it's mouth. It claiming to be a public virtual library or at least creating the marketing pretence of being one it should be bound by the exact same expectation that people have when they attend a normal library, privacy, free access, non exclusivity of content and of course a complete absence of off topic advertising.
For authors of course, it means a huge amount of exposure and a huge amount of competition. So while the book now is continuously made available to a global audience it is also buried and obscured by a huge number of competitive titles. The best of 'class' books that get 'honestly' reviewed will get the bulk of the market and all the rest thousands upon thousands of titles will get basically nothing. Big profits for the best of 'class', no absolutely not because nearly as good as but one tenth the price will wipe them out. So the commoditising of books, 99 cents a copy anyone. Now add to that non-exclusivity and you can see why authors, especially publisher and, even retail sales are bitching.
You can also bet google will make 'open' books freely available on that site as well, so even more competition. With a world full of people who are more concerned with the knowledge imparted and of course with establishing a publicly acknowledged level of expertise, you can expect open books will inevitably become best of class because they will continue to be worked on, refined and improved, whilst remaining free.
So stop google, 'NO' absolutely 'NOT', let's just ensure non-exclusivity and, mandated strictly enforced privacy ;D.
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're not trying to prevent Google from having the sole right. They're trying to prevent Google from having any right. That's evil.
I have concerns about the risk of Google having too much power too. A motto only goes so far. But from where I sit they didn't get the market dynamic they have from buying up ideas and forcing people out of business with dirty tricks [theregister.co.uk] like some of these. They get their markets by competing and giving better service - doing what they do very well. That might be an advantage, but I have trouble coloring it an unfair advantage. Others have the chance after all to step up their game if they're able.
Re:A genuine question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some has to do it (Score:4, Insightful)
None of the companies in this coalition had the balls to step up and do this themselves.
Do what themselves? Get sued and settle?
I don't think that anyone would object if terms of the settlement were universally applied to everyone - so that e.g. Amazon could also go pay some reasonable fee to provide out-of-print books, and compete with Google. But as it is, it's clearly not a level playing field anymore.
Re:I'm all for it. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm all for an Open Alliance as opposed to a closed one, but I want what Google is offering.
University all access passes for their libraries and students.
Access to orphan books.
Easy for authors to claim rights and be compensated.
Easy reading on computers, mobile devices, and e-readers.
If you guys can accomplish all this as quickly and completely as Google will, I'll support you.
What I want here is for everyone to have the ability to pay fees and provide access to all those things the same way Google can do it now. It really is a very good thing they're doing, but I don't see why they should be the only ones legally able to do it.
If after that happens, Google is still the only one actually doing it - or if they're the ones doing it best (which is quite likely - where Google starts first, it's usually hard to beat them) - I don't mind. The free market will settle it there. But let it be free first.
Re:A genuine question (Score:5, Insightful)
If Google decides that they don't want you reading some book for whatever reason, then you're shit out of luck unless you've got a hard copy of it.
So.. kinda like if Google did nothing?
Re:Google does have a bit too much power. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there's no real official way into the market. If they just started violating copyright, it's possible someone might file a class-action lawsuit against them, and possible they might be able to negotiate some sort of settlement similar to the one Google got. But it's not at all clear that that would be the outcome. Google's basically found a very clever way of using the class-action mechanism's preclusion to violate the copyright of people who haven't agreed, because class-action lawsuits are opt-out rather than opt-in.
Re:Google does have a bit too much power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, I'd much prefer an open database of scanned works rather than letting one company negotiate a deal.
It is a nontrivial exercise to obtain high-quality scans of 20+ million books. The scanning must be done non-destructively, since nearly all of these books are out of print. This means someone/something turning pages and taking pictures. It costs most archivists hundreds of dollars to scan each book this way. Which is fine if you're the Brewster Kahle trying to compile a very small collection. If you want to do a complete job of it, it costs hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions -- and that's if you get the scanning technology and QC pipeline right.
The question is: Who pays all that money to do the scanning?
I'm guessing Brewster Kahle would prefer that the US Government fund it. Maybe that would be nice, but I don't think it's particularly realistic. Other than that, only Google has stepped up to this effort. Microsoft quit theirs last year. If Google thought they had no legal basis to use this material, or make any money from it, I guarantee they would stop the scanning in an instant. They aren't stupid after all.
I'm guessing the "Open Book Alliance" has no intent to invest the scale of effort needed to pull this off. They're just trying to shoot torpedoes at Google.
That's the thing (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, any one of these groups has the ability to strike a deal with the author's guild. Google doesn't have an exclusive license. All they have to do is get up in a business Google's adopted and out-compete them in quality of service.
I can see why they'd rather fight it out in court, but that doesn't mean I favor their cause.
Re:Some has to do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that investing money and energy implies quality. Google's scanned books are very low quality, as a matter of fact. If you'd like to see good quality scans, try pointing your browser at the Center for Retrospective Digitization of Goettingen University [uni-goettingen.de] for example.
The problem though isn't money or energy for scanning, there's plenty of that around. The problem is legal, as in Google have an exclusive agreement with the American Author's Guild, so others are not allowed to play. That's the problem here.
Maybe you believe in capitalism? In that case, don't forget that every time some one company has an exclusive right to exploit a resource, it inevitably leads to low quality, expensive junk passed off as gold.
Re:Some has to do it (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather have competition. If there cannot be competition because of the law, then the law should be changed, or there should be no access until the pressure builds to change the laws.
Q: How does one produce a digital copy of a book?
A: One person scans the book, and 50 million people download it.
The cost is therefore negligible.
Wrong. Google have a "free pass" on scanning anything they like, because they settled a class action with the American Author's Guild. Nobody else gets a free pass, and that's wrong. Either Google should not get a free pass, or everybody should get a free pass.
The sooner google books is retired the better (Score:1, Insightful)
What is the point of google books really?
They dont make any free books freely available and only link to "buy this now" even for books and scans that are public domain globally.
I can seriously not find any books on google books that are available freely that are published prior to ca 1830. Perhaps 1830 is the cutoff when their "I sell public domain books for profit" partners have agreed on with google?
For example this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9zuFXqw12hUC&q=strindberg&dq=strindberg&lr=
This book, published in 1919 is public domain in sweden, the us, europe, australia, ...
I can only find a "snippet view" and a link to where i can buy this book from a google partner.
Why cant i download the scans, as I can from TIA.
Great news that TIA get support from those three companies. TIE does a great job preserving history and books for us. Google books, less so.
GO TIA GO!
Re:Open X Alliance (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Some has to do it (Score:2, Insightful)
The ad program was to make sure you knew what Bing! was, not to make sure you use it. They obviously succeeded (though you are likely someone who would have encountered it anyway).
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:1, Insightful)
Google is opening up access to book A which discusses same topics as book B. Amazon makes profit by selling book B. People don't buy book B anymore.
Re:Some has to do it (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's attitude to copyright is 'infringe and pay up if we're caught'. They are not pushing for copyright reform, they are just pushing for Google to get better terms than everyone else.
Re:This is not about competing to provide books (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhere Bill Gates Is Wondering What Happened (Score:3, Insightful)
People used to form alliances to fight Microsoft. Now Microsoft is joining an alliance to fight Google. What is it he wrote in The Road Ahead about death coming swiftly to the market leader?